Dressmakers

I think of her dresses: cream sateen with beige flower print,
wide-collared, three-quarter cuffed sleeves, full skirt –
rainbow-striped silk, straight and sleeveless, thin belted.
As a girl, she told me, she stood still while her grandmother
wielded the scissors to cut neckline and armholes freely.
Her mother, more the designer, added hand-crocheted
trimmings, buttons or a tassel, so when it came to the thrifty
years on the farm, just the three of them and the evacuees,

they were adept at a tuck and a turn, adapting the pattern
to make do and mend – something that never really left her.
It’s been some time since I’ve eased a sleeve into the shape
of a shoulder but I do still stitch a hem. Her sewing box lives
under my stairs: when I lift the lid looking for thread, I find
her mother’s delicate collars and cuffs waiting for a garment.

About this poem

A winner of the Members' Poems competition in the Winter 2017 issue of Poetry News. The competition, on the theme of 'Elegant', was judged by Tim Turnbull.

Jennie Carr lives in West Oxfordshire but has lived in the south and north of England and for a time in New Zealand. Her poems have appeared in various journals and anthologies including Poetry News, The Cannon's Mouth, Brittlestar, The Frogmore Papers, Oxford Poetry and The Book of Love and Loss (Belgrave Press 2014). She won first prize for poetry in the 2016 Brittlestar writing competition. In 2018 she won the Littoral Press nature collection competition with her first collection A Tilt in the Year.